White Nationalist Who Attended Unite the Right Elected as Republican Official

White nationalist James Allsup, who attended the tiki torch march and the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville last August, has been elected as an officer in the Republican Party of Washington state.

Over the weekend, Allsup posted a letter confirming his elected position on Facebook, stating he would be a Republican Party Precinct Committee Officer (PCO) for precinct 129 in Whitman County. The position had “no challenges,” according to the letter.

Allsup has aligned himself in the past with the white nationalist and neo-Nazi group Identity Evropa, identified as such by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). In addition to attending the Unite the Right rally, he has been seen speaking at other white nationalist events over the past year, including one in Washington, D.C. last year that also featured white nationalist Richard Spencer. Allsup is an avid Youtube and Facebook user, which he uses as a platform for anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant views.

On his Facebook page, Allsup posts statuses such as, “It’s okay to be white,” “My culture is not a costume,” and promotes the unfounded and ridiculous myth that pitbulls are vicious killers.

In Washington state, a precinct officer is someone who organizes a voting precinct for their political party and brings neighborhood and voter concerns to their local party organizers, and is described as a grassroots position. While James Allsup will not have any real deciding power as a precinct officer, it does mean he will control what his party organizers hear as concerns from his neighborhood and local voters. The Whitman County GOP calls PCOs the “backbone” of the GOP.

Allsup writes encouraging words to his followers on Facebook such as, “You may be scared of ‘identity politics,’ or labels like ‘nationalist’ and ‘identitarian.’ But unlike the so-called conservatives, who merely pretend to care about your interests to get your vote, American nationalists and identitarians are ones willing to risk everything–social status, financial status, and sometimes even our lives–to protect our nation.”

Allsup studied political science at Washington State University and graduated in 2017. According to his Facebook, he was the former chairman of the Washington College Republican Federation and a former senior advisor for Students for Trump.

Keegan Hankes, a senior research analyst for the SPLC told the Huffington Post that, “Anytime that someone who holds extreme political positions has any foothold in mainstream politics, it’s a problem.” Hankes also added that white nationalists have used the strategy of seeking power in uncontested elections before, adding to the eight white nationalists running for office this year, according to SPLC.

Madelyne Ashworth

Madelyne is a Richmond native and staff writer at RVA Magazine, primarily covering politics and white nationalism in Virginia. She spent the past four years working and living in D.C., earning her B.A. in journalism and running to the White House every time the President sneezed. Follow her on Twitter at @madelyne_ash.